NEWARK — Barbara Oliveira will never know what it’s like to walk 18 miles in search of clean drinking water, but her quest to build a well for an African tribe has not been without travails.

In July burglars broke into her Fremont home and stole $12,000 in jewelry that she planned to auction off to help the nomadic Masai people of Kenya. Police never recovered the jewelry, which a client had given to her for the auction, but all was not lost.

The next Sunday at church, two acquaintances who had read about the robbery offered Oliveira several pieces of their jewelry.

“I was shocked,” Oliveira said. “It turned out they had been to Kenya and knew about the poverty there.”

On Sept. 22, Oliveira and members of the New Hope Community Church will auction off the jewelry and other items, including Oakland Raiders mementos and accommodations in Cancun, at a fundraiser to dig the well. The event will include music by three Christian rock bands and a visit from Raiders great Willie Brown, who will be celebrity auctioneer.

A well costs $40,000 to dig, Oliveira said, because the water table where the Masai live is deep beneath volcanic rock. The congregation has raised

$7,500 so far and hopes to raise the rest at the event.

“It’s a big challenge for us,” Pastor Jim Schoon said. When the money is raised, the church will forward it to the Reformed Church in America, a Christian denomination that has dug wells in Kenya.

Oliveira, an event decorator, first learned of the Masai on a television program last year. Though she still hasn’t set foot in Africa, she has since opened her home to a Masai pastor and an African youth choir.

“These are wonderful people, and they deserve to have clean water,” she said.

Oliveira said she hasn’t seen the new jewelry for auction, so she doesn’t know how it compares with the stolen batch, which included a watch appraised at $5,900. As for her client who donated the missing jewels, she said informing her of the theft was gut-wrenching.

“At first she was a little bit upset, but she realized that’s just the way it is,” Oliveira said. “God had other plans.”

Maybe it takes one of the world's most elitist institutions -- a monarchy, for goodness' sake -- to provide a view of Christianity rooted not in conservative cultural warfare (or unrelenting support for Donald Trump) but in an egalitarian love.